cynara by Ernest Christopher Dowson
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Heels
Heels approaching
Conscience’s reproaching
Din Shrieks, “This is sin”!
But oh, how sweet it is to give in …
Sound ever nearer,
Clearer and clearer.
The man fears her
Yet desires.
unquenchable fires.
The body tires
Yet still he aspires
To take
And her passion awake.
Figurines
Not all metal is brass.
Figurines
Perform sceenes,
Reflected back in glass,
Then out of the play pass.
Some will return again
To cause the director pain,
But not all metal is brass.
Refracting
The poet may redact
The light that through his poem does refract.
But the reader will therein construe
That she believes to be true.
Walls
A thing done often palls.
Walls
Have ears
And down the years
They hear our tears
And fears.
The wall
May not speak
But as week follows week
It will recall
Each trip and fall.
In the halls
Of the great
And the abodes of the humble,
Walls wait.
This truth I state,
Edifices crumble
And walls do prate …
The Tired Poet
What to do when one is tired
And the desired
Word
Is substituted by one absurd?
This will not one’s reader’s impress.
‘tis time, I think
To drink
Copious amounts of coffee, and dress …
Ducking and Diving
Ducking and diving,
Just about surviving
Is the lot of many
Who have only a penny
Or two
To see them through.
What to do
When the cupboard is bare?
Beware
Temptation, for Oscar knows
Where leads the sweetness of the rose …
—
“I can resist anything accept temptation”. Oscar Wilde, “Lady Windermere’s Fan”.
Circles
Countless pages,
Throughout the ages,
Filled by people, a few perhaps sages.
It goes in stages,
Toleration then repression
Of the world’s oldest profession.
Some cry “shame!
The men are to blame!
Fine or confine
Them in jail,
Such a policy can not fail
To bust their lust.
One must
Prevent
The descent
Of women into prostitution. Shame! Shame!
The men are to blame!”
Others say
“Let the men pay.
Providing the women are willing
It is no business of society how a man spends his shilling.
Many do freely choose
To use
Their bodies to obtain financial recompense,
It does not make sense
To fine
Or confine
A man
When a girl can
Continue in her profession.
The answer lies not in repression”.
The nights are growing longer.
The earnest ponder
On the solution
To prostitution,
While John and whore
Go on as before.
—
This poem was prompted by the following article, by Julie Bindel, advocating that those who pay for sex be fined or imprisoned, (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/13/decriminalising-sex-trade-protect-workers-abuse
).
If Mirrors Could Speak
If mirrors could speak
We would seek
To have them covered, Lest our whole
Soul
Be laid bare
For the world to stare.
If mirrors could tell
What in man’s heart does dwell
We would do well
To turn them to the wall
Lest our reputation be lost beyond recall.
Agnostic
What am I?
A head full of whirling thoughts, then I die.
Who knows
Where my essence goes
When the din within
Ends and nothingness? Descends.
